The present invention relates generally to data processing and, in particular, to accessing memory of a data processing system utilizing copy and paste instructions.
A conventional multiprocessor (MP) computer system comprises multiple processing units (which can each include one or more processor cores and their various register sets and cache memories), input/output (I/O) devices, and data storage, which can include both system memory (volatile and/or nonvolatile) and nonvolatile mass storage. In order to provide enough addresses for memory-mapped I/O operations and the data and instructions utilized by operating system and application software, MP computer systems typically reference an effective address space that includes a much larger number of effective addresses than the number of physical storage locations in the memory-mapped I/O devices and system memory. Therefore, to perform memory-mapped I/O or to access system memory, a processor core within a computer system that utilizes effective addressing is required to translate an effective address into a real address assigned to a particular I/O device or a physical storage location within system memory.
In general, an MP computer system can be classified as implementing either a Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) or Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) architecture. CISC architectures are characterized by the execution of so-called “complex instructions” that directly reference the computer system's system memory and do not require explicit enumeration of any loads of operands from, or stores of execution results to, system memory. In contrast, RISC architectures are characterized by relatively simple instruction sets including load-type and store-type memory access instructions that, when executed, explicitly direct the movement of data between system memory and the architected register set(s) of the processor (i.e., those registers that can be directly identified in an instruction as the source or destination of data referenced by execution of the instruction).